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Bitvees On Friday May 16, Bainbridge Island Television held its 3rd annual Bitvee Awards event honoring volunteers, producers and locally produced television programs. The event underscored community involvement and increased programming, which includes a modern streaming video service, a new 2nd channel, and over 11,600 airings of programs in 2007. In addition volunteers donated more than 1,000 hours to BITV. The evening included a food buffet donated by "That's a Some Pizza" and desserts by Robin Ferguson, wine tasting by Eagle Harbor Wine Company and Eleven Winery, and a tour of the BITV facility as the night geared up to the nail-biting Bitvee award announcements. And the award goes to...
Winners, partial list (moving clockwise from top left): Mary Dombrowski,Cathy Bellefeuille; Robert Dashiell, Terry Moyement, Adrian Mason, Kit Spier, Spencer Lucas, John Williams. BEST NEW ORIGINAL PROGRAM BEST EVENT PROGRAM BEST TRAVEL PROGRAM BEST INTERVIEW PROGRAM BEST CAMP TRAILER, 18 AND UNDER BEST CAMP MUSIC VIDEO, 18 AND UNDER BEST CAMP ORIGINAL PRODUCTION, 18 AND UNDER BEST CLASS PRODUCTION BEST SPORTS SERIES BEST EDUCATIONAL SERIES LEADING PRODUCTION VOLUNTEER VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR BITVEE STAR MOST IMPROVED PRODUCER PRODUCER OF THE YEAR BEST NEW SERIES BEST SERIES Bitvees Awards sponsored by:
City Council Unanimously Approves Contract On Wednesday, April 23, City Council unanimously approved a five year contract between the City and BITV. The contract will be posted here in a few days. We commend the City for recognizing the importance of access television and BITV's roll in community building. However, we are dissapointed the City decided to keep 10% of the Comcast subscriber fees about ($20,000 in 2008) for the City's general fund for the duration of the contract. That means BITV will be unable to retain a vital staff person. The funding does allow BITV to offer relevant local programming on two channels and streaming 24/7. It also provides ongoing funds for necessary equipment repair and replacement. Franchise Agreement and Contract BITV has long held the position that the subscriber fees the City collects from Comcast, also called PEG pass through fees, should directly benefit cable customers and the community. The City’s Franchise Agreement with Comcast clearly states that the PEG capital pass through fees the City collects are to be used for cable access capital improvements, not to supplement COBI capital budgets and City projects. BITV has never received all of the PEG fees the City collects. BITV with the help of the community and thousands of volunteer hours helped the City renew a five year Franchise Agreement with Comcast. Comcast’s Franchise Director said, ”Bainbridge Island was given an unparalleled franchise agreement from Comcast was because of the community support for BITV, how BITV demonstrated their programming commitment and its ability to outperform other larger stations in Washington.” BITV is the designated access television provider for Bainbridge. BITV has a contract with the City that expires January 31, 2008. Production service for the City expired December 31, 2007. These contracts determine among other things, the fees the City collects from Comcast for access programming and the amount of that funding the City passes through to BITV. BITV does not get any funding from the City's general funds or taxes. Even at the 100% level, the fees do not provide enough funding to run our very small television station. With only 4,100 subscribers, there just isn't much funding for community television available through this arrangement, yet every dollar BITV receives is accounted for and well invested to benefit Comcast customers and BITV members. Out of necessity, BITV must try to match these funds with grants, contributions, fundraising, thousands of volunteer hours and other services to deliver a basic level of programming. BITV's services and programming have tripled since 2004. BITV has not received any adjustments for inflation since 2004 or for the increased services and programming. City staff have have made no effort to negotiate a new contract despite public announcements, emails, phone conversations and personal visits. BITV's contract for City requested telvision services expired December 31, 2007. As a measure of good faith BITV has been providing television services to the City without compensation throughout January. BITV will be forced to cut programming and operations in February if a new contract and funding is not forthcoming. If you have any questions please contact scott@bitv.org or call 780-2980. 2008 to 2012 Cable Franchise Agreement 2003-26 Cable Franchise Amendment Franchise Fees and BITV’s contract with the City BITV wants to maximize communication services to the community not minimize them. This is why we are hopeful for an operating agreement with the City. BITV and improved island wide communication can be one of the great success stories of 2008, and all at no additional cost to taxpayers. Currently, in exchange for some of the franchise fees, BITV provides 1,000 production hours for government programming and only 100 hours for community (non profit) programming. We want to see a fairer distribution of our services. This is because BITV is a PEG access station. PEG is an acronym for Public, Education and Government, which means no one entity has a monopoly of the access station. In 2008, we plan to do this in the form of a weekly news program and free television time in a weekly community open mic program free to every resident of Bainbridge. Briefly: Here's a little history and an update on Comcast customer fees the city collects. In the 1970s and 1980s cable companies paid fees for the right of ways to lay their cable in municipalities. These became known as Franchise fees. In 1984 congress passed The Cable Communications Policy Act, and amended with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, authorizing local governments to grant franchises for the provision of cable television service within their corporate boundaries. In part, it created federal law defining what can and cannot be requested by a franchisor of a cable company. The Cable law also requires the cable companies to provide channels for local programming if requested by the franchisor. An intent of the federal law is to allow a franchisor to negotiate a franchise fee and the use of one or more channels from a cable company. The franchise fee funds could be used to fund the production of local programming in order to complement the cable company chosen programming. The cable company monopoly in a community allows for no localization of programming, therefore the FCC believes that locally generated programming must be allowed if requested. For many years in certain municipalities, if a designated access provider existed, the entire franchise fee was used for the production of local programming. In 1996, that was changed to allow franchisors to negotiate the amount of the franchise fee passed through to the community access provider. In general, PEG access stations, and BITV in particular owe a great deal to Comcast and COBI. Cable law and additional material: http://www.publicaccess.org/cableact.html http://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/csgen.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_access There are three fees or taxes the City collects from Comcast customers as per the 2008 City budget. 1. Franchise Fee, 5%: The City collected $194,000 in 2007. BITV received $120,000 in 2007. The franchise fee paid to the franchisor (the City of Bainbridge Island) is based on a percentage of the ‘gross subscriber revenue’ obtained by the cable company, and by federal law cannot exceed 5%.The City of Bainbridge Island, like most franchisors, has a franchise that requires the cable company to pay 5% of subscriber gross revenue. 2. Utility Tax, 6%: Best guess is the City collected approximately $200,000. BITV receives $0. COBI also receives revenue from COMCAST in the form of a 6% utility tax. Comcast pays this quarterly to COBI. For City budget purposes, this is lumped into other taxes, but my best guess is approximately $200,000. 3. PEG pass through:The City collected $55,000 in 2007. BITV received $27,000 in 2007. There is s provision to collect a fee from subscribers to be used for Public Access equipment and for Public Access-related facilities renovation commonly referred to as the PEG pass-through fee. To determine this fee BITV participated in a telecommunications survey. The results were that 78% of Comcast subscribers were willing to pay $1.00 per month per subscriber to support BITV. PEG fees ranges from $0.00 to $1.25 throughout the country. Most are less than $1.00. A sticky point in the recent Franchise agreement and major success for Bainbridge was Comcast agreed to keep the $1.00 per month pass through. No other station in Washington had retained the $1.00 in recent negotiations. Many had dropped to $.25 - $.35 per subscriber. Bainbridge received it primarily because of the volunteer community programming effort that allowed us to successfully acquire the 2nd channel and BITV's community partnerships that enable us to acquire matching grants. BITV has not received any inflationary adjustments in more than three years. Public Access 5-year capital obligations exceed $500,000 or twice the PEG fees. BITV has already received and made application for capital grants in anticipation of the shortfall. Our very attainable goal is to leverage all of the PEG fees with matching grants and not ask the City for additional funding. Comcast customers contribute approximately $440,000 to the City. For comparison, Bremerton collect $ millions. COBI is revenue starved. This leads to them wanting Comcast fees for projects. The contract funding decision may come down to need, fairness, deliverables and accountability. Who can best meet Bainbridge's communication needs as defined by the Cable law? What amount will it take to meet and maintain those needs? Who can deliver a product that is the fairest for the Comcast fee payer? And who best demonstrated their ability to account for and grow the Comcast funds they received? BITV is asking for all of items 1 and 3 to accomplish the above. That amount will not solve the island's communication problems, or BITV's funding requirements, but the community benefits will be very visible to all Executive Director’s Comments to City Council January 9, 2008 5-1/2 years ago, BITV received a small portion of the Comcast cable subscriber fees the city collects. Those fees, however small to run a television station, provided the foundation for community television. We’ve changed a lot since then and our accomplishments are well documented. Our operation remains small and efficient. Presently there are only 2 & 3/4 employees. And we negotiated a very agreeable long-term lease for our facility. In the past three years we have not asked the city for any inflationary adjustments or funds to meet the added services. Last year, BITV raised 40% more revenue than the allotted franchise fees to provide television services. This is a remarkable testament to the community support for access television. We accomplished this with an engaged community and by providing an unparalleled product for such a small organization. The time has come to advance the Island’s communication needs and use community television in an important role. Weekly news, televised neighborhood meetings, live studio shows are just a few exciting programs we hope to deliver. However, as much as we want to move forward, we do not have an indication of how the Comcast franchise fees will be allocated by the City in 2008 or beyond. So without this information and a contract, we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot adequately budget, plan, fundraise, retain staff, and do what this community and Comcast customers deserve. All of us realize Comcast subscribers expect BITV to deliver relevant community programming. We also know this community wants BITV to be a valuable community resource. The best way to accomplish this is by allocating 100% of the franchise fees the city collects from Comcast to BITV. Some of these fees can only be used for access capital projects. This is not new money. It is existing money meant to support access television. BITV has a proven record of leveraging these funds with matching grants. This provides the community the greatest return. Because Bainbridge only has 4,100 subscribers, franchise fees alone are inadequate to fund current television services and capital obligations, so BITV must continue to be entrepreneurial in revenue generation and thrifty in expenditures. The dividends and accountability can be viewed every day on channels 12 and 22, through our numerous services, and by visiting the station. Comcast’s Franchise Director recently said, ”a reason Bainbridge Island was given an unparalleled franchise agreement from Comcast was because of the community support for BITV, how BITV demonstrated their programming commitment and its ability to outperform other larger stations in Washington.” We submitted our draft proposal last year. We believe this council much like the previous council realizes the tremendous asset of communication through community television. So it is our hope that the City staff can move swiftly in implementing a contract with BITV by the end of the month, and utilize the existing Comcast funding mechanism that allows the valuable resource of community television to thrive. 2nd Channel The City of Bainbridge Island on behalf of BITV made application to Comcast to acquire a 2nd channel. A second channel would be primarily dedicated to education and community interest programs. The process started last Fall, when for 10 weeks BITV had to cablecast 80% original programming every week to meet the minimum requirements. Comcast has told the City that we met the requirements and we have channel 22. Ch 22 will primarily be dedicated to government and public affairs programming. We plan to have it operational in the comings weeks. We could not have met the requirements without help of countless hours our members volunteered to created original programs. To them we say "thank you."
_________________________________________________________________ NAB - National Association of Broadcasters Convention ACM Northwest Region Spring Conference
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http://www.elevenwinery.com, Eagle Harbor Wine Co.
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BITV | 7686 High School Rd. Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 | P.O. Box 10449 Bainbridge Island, WA 98110 | (206) 780-2980 Site Contents © 2006 Bainbridge Island Television All Rights Reserved. All images, media, and other content used in this site are copyrighted by their respective owners. Any unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. |